finding purpose in this life through love, fitness, storytelling, and all things wacky and wonderful

When Alice fell down the rabbit hole, she was lost. Afraid. Alone….but then she wasn’t. She changed from big to small, and small to tall, and was never quite the proper size. Alice made choices along the way. A blitzed caterpillar, frenetic rabbit, and top-hatted mad man befriended her. Nothing made sense, and puzzles surrounded her. She changed, but she was just fine in the end.

I think I’m like Alice. A little bit confused, trying to make sense of nonsense most of the time. And sometimes fighting, or struggling to accept change.

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I admit it. I’ve been sucked into the world of bunz. Not buns. BUNZ. The local app has taken over not just Toronto, but Canada, and I’m not ashamed to say I use it, and love it, and it’s changed the way I feel about consumption. Here’s the thing, we’re a throw away society. When something’s empty, it goes in the trash — paper plates, cups, knives, forks, toilet paper rolls, makeup wipes, diapers, wine bottles, aluminum foil, plastic wrap… I could go on and on. Yes, I use all these things, yes I mostly throw them away. But the thing about disposable society is that I have a conscience. Despite being an admitted lover of shopping shopaholic, I abhor waste. And yet these polarizing attributes exist within me. I’ll buy something new, and bring my own shopping bag because plastic bags make me sad. I’m not a hippy, I don’t want to be a hippy. I want to be happy, and with a little less waste and clutter in my life. This is where Bunz comes in.

Bunz began in Toronto as a Facebook page, and now an app. You create a profile, post items that you don’t really want or need and trade with other folks around you. Yes, trade. No money is involved, nada. That’s the premise of Bunz anyway, and that’s what most good Bunz traders do. We barter, we chat, we meet up, and we swap. Sometimes we swap more than just a bag of coffee beans or a coffee table ( yep, I scored my awesome coffee table from a fellow Bunzer). Sometimes we swap stories, anecdotes, jokes, ideas, and a sweet treat or two. ( On a 35 degree day I gave a Bunz a popsicle when we traded. It was HOT and she was super happy).

These days I’m trading far less than I did over the summer when I was admittedly pretty infatuated with Bunz. There were some amazing trades, and some not so good trades. I met some cute dogs along the way and got to go to a small cider festival. I even traded with a fellow by the name of Kohji who’s been documenting his attempt to LIVE off Bunz trades only for one month. ( He succeeded, news outlets followed his story, and Kohji even held a party last week to celebrate his endeavour). You might think this all sounds super ridiculous, odd, socialist, even. But I don’t care. There are thousands more like me and we do it because it makes us a little happier. And while I’ll never be one of those, able to KonMari my existence ( my socks are never treated with respect…they’re basically spheres of mayhem stuffed into one drawer), Bunz helps me curb my hoarding tendencies….while forever aiming to de-clutter my world.

♥

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It’s that time of year…. the leaves are falling, the air feels a little bit crispy, and we’re all back in the swing of things… So I’m back to my blog, finally. I guess I had a few weeks of “writer’s block” ….Scratch that, in reality I think I have so many topics I want to write about and I could never narrow it down for a post. Or for a post I deemed “good enough”. So now I’m back and that’s why this post is fitting.

It’s dippin’ the apples in the honey time of year for the Jewish people. Our new year is upon us and as we congregate in synagogues around the world to hear the trumpeting blast of a Ram’s horn (the Shofar) I’ll be trying to take the time to reflect on what I hope to work on for the year ahead, and what I’d like to achieve, not just for myself, but for those around me. While career-goal setting is not in my wheelhouse, I’m trying to flip that around. So this Jewish New Year is as good a time as any to kick that off. It’s also a time to ask forgiveness to those around you, make amends, make peace, and bring love to those we love so that the year ahead will be a good one….and that Higher Power Above will save a nice cozy spot for us in that Good Book.

It’s hard to say “I’m sorry”. Admittance of guilt, wrongdoing, shame, hurt. But it adds humility, it adds character, it makes us stronger and better people. There are those times I SHOULD have bitten my tongue, and didn’t. That time I gave a glance that wasn’t so friendly ( resting bitch-face is still a thing for some of us). Or the time I was impatient and didn’t give someone the opportunity for their moment, or their time to shine. For that, I am sorry. But it’s no good just writing it down, or saying it out loud. We need to say it to one another. To talk it out face to face. I’m working on that, and now is as good a time as any.

♥

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There’s an old Journo saying, one that rings true for perhaps many endeavours in life – fake it till you make it. Now you can take that and run with it many ways, but when we’re talking self-improvement and taking life by the balls- I really believe there really is no other way. Let me take a step back for a hot second.

I’ve become pretty pumped on podcasts these days. ( I remember about 8 years ago when I first discovered podcasts and would pop my earbuds in on the London tube and listen to the Slate magazine podcast in between classes while I partied studied abroad. I need to listen to Slate again ! But I digress…) Lately Barbell Shrugged and Brute Strength podcasts have me pretty hooked. The latest episode I listened to struck a chord. Host and Brute Strength CEO Mike Cazayoux interviewed a man by the name of Justin S’ua. S’ua is the Mental Skills Coordinator for the Boston Red Sox ( How effin COOL does that job sound?! ) S’ua talks about mental adversity and getting past failure in this episode “The Body Achieves what the mind believes”. ( His anecdotes on Growth mindset vs. Fixed mindset were particularly poignant…but I’ll save that for another post. )

Justin S’ua — I gotta see him deliver a Ted Talk one day!

But when I came to the part in the episode regarding confidence…. I sort of froze. In athletics, in our jobs, in life ….. we need confidence to push forward. But what about when you don’t FEEL confident. Throw in the towel. Quit. Give up….WHY BOTHER…In Crossfit… I have faced this hundreds of times…A heavy clean and jerk…I’m TERRIFIED, confidence is out the door and I want to run from the barbell.

But in performance your feelings DON’T MATTER…

Nope. What does matter? Your actions. This is where FAKE it till you make it comes in.

CONFIDENCE IN CAREER

When it comes to confidence — I’m talking about FAKING that confidence….essentially building UP that voice in your head that says YOU GOT this… and smothering that annoying buzzing in your ear chirping You’ll just be second best again… You’re a failure….It’s pointless… You’re useless.

I struggle with this, and believe I always have. In my professional life it’s been a constant hurdle and area of attempted self-improvement. But it’s getting better. In recent weeks I’ve stopped giving myself license to make excuses and I’ve stopped pointing fingers at the 3000 people who could do the job better than I can. I can do the job better than they can. I can make it to the top. That’s not going to say I will never have negative thoughts..because I WILL. They’ll never go away. But I don’t have to believe them, and they’ll float away like cotton candy clouds in the sky. So for now, I’m faking it… and that confidence will manifest from fraudulence to actualization, I promise.

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This is not the first time I have written a blog post. I’ve done this before, but did I follow through? The answer is no. I can’t tell you why. I don’t really know what switch went off that told me to stop writing, but something happened, and I got lazy. But this time it’s going to be different. I’m on a new journey now, exploring the words in my scatterbrain and bringing them to digital fruition. I’ll stick to it this time. I think it’s got something to do with being 30 now. I think I’m wiser. I think I’ve matured. I think I’m getting more of a handle on life than I ever have before, whatever that means.

If you’re reading this you’re curious about what I’ll be writing about and why. Well the goal is to stick to things that are passionate to me, and along the way, teaching something to those who choose to read my words. I’m calling this coffee and heavy lifting because they seem to epitomize what I’m all about. Coffee chats, coffee dates, coffee shops- they’re for social interaction, chatting, story telling, brainstorming. Plus, I do indeed love coffee ( and all things consumable … let’s be real).

Heavy Lifting has dual meaning. Fitness is a passion of mine, and friends will say when it comes to the barbell… I just LOVE it. The push, the pain, the mental and physical release. The barbell doesn’t care how good or bad your day was or what your hair looks like or the random breakout on your face. It just needs to be lifted. But heavy lifting is also the emotional and mental lifting we do in our lives. From the (semi-minor) strains of planning my wedding, to career juggling to family politics. The heavy lifting never really ends, now does it?

And for now, this is post number one. I’m sticking to it. And this time it’ll be the last of the first.